Great Weather For Ducks...And Southern Californians

    The day before yesterday  the subject among Angelinos (as citizens of Los Angeles are known) was the glorious weather. 
    "We rarely see such a day,"  said my daughter Maria cheerfully as she breezed through the front door after work.
    "This is great," said my son-in-law Justin,  glancing out the window during dinner.
    It was pouring rain. 
    "I just love the rain,"  sighed Maria, who used to hate rainy days back when she was growing up in verdant Ohio.
    Earlier in the day I'd gone on a shopping trip to Ikea.  The person standing in front of me at the check-out line looked out the store window at the overcast sky and the palm trees swaying in the wind.
    "Oh",  she cried ,  "Is that rain?"
    Indeed it was, and folks couldn't have been happier for this cold, wet, rare Southern California  day.
    Because, along with the rest of the state, Los Angeles has been in the grip of a severe drought for going on three years.
    Though known for it's balmy, sunny, Mediterranean-type climate, Los Angeles does normally have it's rainy season during the winter months.  The winter rains feed the Sierra Nevada Snowpack -  the precipitation trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the form of snow - which then melts in the spring and supplies Los Angeles with a third of it's water supply.
    But because of the lack of rainfall for the past few years the snowpack is currently at only 12 percent of its normal volume.
    And so Los Angeles is dry, dry, dry and the citizens continue to be under some water-use restrictions and have a constant reminder of the drought in the brownness of the hills and palm trees.  In some California counties where the drought has reached critical levels residents who break the water restrictions face strict fines and may even be required to go to "water school", classes that provide instruction on how to conserve water.
   And so the rare downpour is a cause for elation.
    And for some, wonder.
    There had been another rainstorm several weeks earlier and for my two grandbabies, aged 3 years and 18 months and born into the drought, it was the first rain they'd ever seen.
    "It was like they were seeing unicorns, "  said my daughter as she described how the two little ones stood looking out the window, entranced by the rain streaming down the window pane.  "It was magical for them,"  she said.
    But the magic didn't last. 
    By the following morning the rain had dried up and the sky had returned to its clear California cerulean blue:

   
    Sadly, there's no rain in the Los Angeles forecast anytime soon.
    And so until the Lord sees fit to restore the rainy season to this patch of the planet,  I guess Californians will have to settle for  practicing water conservation and consoling  themselves with bright blue skies and dazzling sunshine.